‘Pay has gone backwards across Yorkshire and the Humber’ says Melanie Onn MP

Melanie Onn, Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby, will today say that working people across Yorkshire and the Humber have seen their wages fall by over £2,000 since 2010.

In a House of Commons debate later today, she will cite new figures which show that average earnings in Grimsby have fallen by £2,700 since 2010. Pay has gone backwards across Yorkshire and the Humber over the same period, with regional figures showing an average reduction of £2,361.

Melanie Onn is calling on the Government to reverse their planned cuts to tax credits, which otherwise will mean 3 million working families will be a further £1,300 a year worse off on average.

She will say:

“Prices have risen faster than wages for the vast majority of this Government’s time in office. Working people in Grimsby have seen their earnings fall by more than £2,700 since 2010. Today, one in three of my constituents earn less than the living wage.

“Grimsby desperately needs a pay rise, but what this Government is doing instead is cutting working people’s incomes by another £1,300 a year. Our town simply cannot cope with a further reduction in incomes.”

The Government have said that people will be compensated for losses in their incomes through increases in the minimum wage, which is being rebranded by the government as the ‘national living wage’. Responding to this, Melanie Onn will say:

“Before I became an MP, I was a living wage campaigner. I know the difficulties people face when they are working for poverty wages to provide for themselves and their families.

“It is insulting to those people to call a wage which doesn’t pay enough to live on, a living wage.”